Adjunct for Cold IPA?

[AlexKay]

Let's just get any crankiness over the name out of the way: I'm going for a highly hopped beer with a grain bill that would otherwise fit a North American Adjunct Lager. So maybe I should have titled the thread "Adjunct for NAAL?" but here we are anyway.

I tend to like my NAALs with corn, but the recipes I see for cold IPAs usually call for rice. I'm thinking that I could just punt and use dextrose. Anyone out there with opinions?

(And for those who are still cranky, what adjunct should I use for my session cold black IPA lager?)

 

[RCope]

I've used rice, corn and a combination of both. I preferred the rice one. But with the bitterness and hop contributions, there were too many variables to say that the rice made it better. All were excellent. If you like the corn, which does give it that subtle corn flavor, then dextrose alone would, of course, negate that. And I think that dextrose alone would dry out an otherwise already dry beer.

For your session cold black lager, I'd definitely use dextrose, but not much....

 

[AlexKay]

Brewed it this morning, went with rice. I’m planning another one in the next week or so, might try dextrose in that one. Though I’m planning totally different hops, so it won’t be much of a side by side.

 

[Coastalbrew]

There was a pretty good article about cold IPA in the Jan/Feb issue of zymurgy. Might be a good read for you

 

[cactusgarrett]

In my opinion, corn adds an extra something in flavor that rice doesn't. What you use totally depends on what you're going for. I've leaned heavily on rice (25-27%) as a way to drop the FG fairly low without imparting any flavor. Cold IPA is a very interesting style in that it's very much a blank canvas that allows you to tweak other aspects of the recipe to get what you want. The grainbill (again, in my opinion) and yeast should make way for the hops, and to me that means using rice over corn.

 

[dmtaylor]

It's your beer. Make it the way you think you'll like it.

Personally I prefer all-malt beers, but if/when I add adjuncts, I would tend to reach for plain white sugar over corn, rice, or other oddball adjuncts. Personally I don't think it makes a whole lot of difference; might as well keep it simple. That's my thinking on it.

One of these days I'm going to brew a session purple smoothie cold IPA.

 

[AlexKay]

It's your beer. Make it the way you think you'll like it.

Personally I prefer all-malt beers, but if/when I add adjuncts, I would tend to reach for plain white sugar over corn, rice, or other oddball adjuncts. Personally I don't think it makes a whole lot of difference; might as well keep it simple. That's my thinking on it.

One of these days I'm going to brew a session purple smoothie cold IPA.

I've got nothing for you when it comes to the smoothie part, but I highly recommend purple corn for the cold (adjunct) and purple parts.

 

[RCope]

I've got nothing for you when it comes to the smoothie part, but I highly recommend purple corn for the cold (adjunct) and purple parts.

That's not purple...this is purple!

A Passion Fruit Sour with Butterfly Pea Tea

 

[AlexKay]

That's not purple...this is purple!
View attachment 815487
A Passion Fruit Sour with Butterfly Pea Tea

Nice!

I bought a pound of butterfly pea flowers to experiment with, and discovered that I'm sensitive to and also don't like the taste.